Girl, Going on 16: Pants on Fire (6 page)

They all stood in silence for a while, thinking about the awful implications. Had Fred been murdered? Had he disappeared, leaving his clothes neatly folded on a bridge or the bank of a canal? Jess’s insides turned somersaults, and Mrs Parsons went pale and started to bite her fingernails: never attractive in the middle-aged, and always a sign of parental meltdown.

‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Parsons. ‘Oh dear. What on earth can have happened? I think I’d better nip back home and see if he’s there. I’m so sorry, Margaret.’ She turned to her friend and exchanged some angsty murmurs, and then, looking white and distracted, she departed.

Jess and Ben sat down again. Jess felt completely limp with embarrassment and panic. In a half-hearted kind of way, she had been enjoying the arm-wrestling with Ben, but now she knew Fred had not been at home all day, she felt deeply scared.

‘What a nightmare,’ she whispered. Thank goodness she had already finished her doughnut, because right now she felt so upset she might not eat again for a whole year.

‘Fred’ll be OK, don’t worry,’ said Ben. ‘But shouldn’t you, like, send him a text to warn him that his mum knows?’

‘Oh my goodness! Yes! Brilliant! Brilliant! You’re really brilliant, Ben!’ said Jess, and got out her mobile. It was the perfect excuse to get in touch with Fred – nothing personal, just a warning.

Jess hesitated. She was so tempted to apologise or to demand an apology, to make up something funny about where he might possibly have been today, to whizz him a few favourite insults or accuse him of nameless crimes, but it really wasn’t the moment. So she simply said:
just met your mum in the cafe so she knows you were absent today. she’s on her way home right now. sorry. just wanted to warn you. jess
.

‘I think I’d better go,’ said Jess. She felt restless. She didn’t really want to walk home with Ben. She wanted to be alone. Hastily she gulped down the last of her Coke. Ben watched her and sort of rubbed his face in a sleepy way, as if auditioning for a disposable razor ad.

‘I think I’ll stay here for a bit,’ he said. ‘Got to try and work out who should be in the team. Have a think.’

‘Right,’ said Jess, getting up. She wasn’t sure if Ben just happened to have done the right thing, or whether he was being really sensitive and considerate. Either way it suited her. She grabbed her bag, said goodbye to Ben in as friendly but distant a way as possible, and squeezed past several other tables to the door.

A squall of rain hit Jess in the face. What a nightmare this day had been. No Fred, Mr Fothergill hurt in a car crash, his place taken by a terrifying control freak who said Jess was too short to play Viola! And then Flora saying she was going to audition anyway – such treachery! And then Fred’s mum catching her apparently
holding hands
with Ben Jones in the Dolphin Cafe!

And, to cap it all, the discovery that Fred wasn’t ill after all – that he’d just been mysteriously elsewhere! How dare he cut school without her! And where on earth had he been all day? With somebody? Who?? One thing was certain. This was so
not
the moment to drop round at Fred’s and sort things out with him. She had never been so exhausted in her life.

Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare! Jess started to run. She was just desperate to get home and collapse in a heap on the sofa, and receive a lot of fuss and attention. Granny was the one person in the world who always had time for her – except her teddy bear Rasputin, of course. Dear Granny!

As she turned into her street, Jess had a sudden ghastly hallucination that, to crown this most awful of days, Granny would be stretched out on her favourite Lake District rug, as dead as a plank and twice as stiff.

Oh, Granny! Granny! Granny! Don’t be dead! Please, God, let my grandmother live!
she prayed feverishly as she hurtled up her own dear, welcoming path.

Oh no! She couldn’t find her key. She must have left it behind. She rang the doorbell and crouched down and peeped through the letterbox into the hall. The sitting room door opened, and the darling old soul came waddling out to let Jess in.

‘Hi, Granny!’ yelled Jess. ‘It’s only me! I’ve just had the worst day ever and I’m desperately in need of some TLC! So stand and deliver!’

Jess stood up, the door opened, and she fell into Granny’s arms. But there was something odd about Granny. She was definitely alive – no worries on that score – but she looked a bit kind of embarrassed and formal.

‘What?’ said Jess. ‘What is it?’

Granny cleared her throat and looked confidential.

‘We’ve got a visitor,’ she said quietly. ‘And he’s Japanese.’

‘You’re kidding!’ Jess could simply not believe it.

‘He’s in the sitting room, dear, and he’s been here for forty minutes already, and still your mum hasn’t come home,’ said Granny, looking rather tired and, to be honest, majorly annoyed.

Jess walked straight into the sitting room. And there, in Granny’s knitting chair, was a Japanese man, exactly as advertised. As Jess entered he leapt to his feet and bowed and smiled. He was quite young, with glossy hair and fabulous velvety brown eyes. He extended his hand.

‘Goodnight,’ he said. Jess was startled, and shook hands with him.

‘He doesn’t really mean goodnight,’ warned Granny. ‘He said that to me when he first arrived.’

‘Noritsugu Nishizawa,’ he said, bowing again.

‘Goodness knows what that means,’ said Granny. ‘But keep smiling and don’t mention the war.’

‘Stop saying things like that in front of him, Granny!’ said Jess.

‘Oh, don’t worry, dear,’ said Granny. ‘He doesn’t understand a word of English. If only your mum would come home. But till she does, I’m afraid we’re stuck with him.’

It wasn’t exactly the homecoming Jess had been longing for.

Chapter 7

‘So you’ve come to see Mum?’ asked Jess. ‘Er – Madeleine Jordan?’

The Japanese guy handed her a piece of paper.

‘That’s a letter from your mother,’ said Granny.

Jess read it. It said:

Dear Mr Nishizawa,

Thank you very much for expressing an interest in taking lessons in English conversation. I would be pleased to have an initial meeting with you to discuss your require
ments on Monday 5th September at 17.30 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Madeleine Jordan

‘Ah – you’re going to have English lessons with Mum,’ Jess said with a polite smile. ‘I do remember her saying something about it. I’m sorry she’s late. Would you like some tea?’

‘It’s cold today,’ said the Japanese man suddenly and randomly. Was he referring to the weather? Or the tea?

‘I offered him some tea when he first arrived,’ said Granny, ‘and he said “No, please”, so I wasn’t sure what to do.’

‘So what’s the weather like in Japan?’ asked Jess, even though she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.

‘Thank you, that was nice,’ he replied.

‘I’m sorry Mum’s late,’ said Jess. ‘Oh no! It’s ten past six. She’s
really
late.’

Suddenly the phone rang out in the kitchen.

‘
’Scuse me,’ said Jess, getting up. Just going out to the kitchen felt like a wonderful escape.

‘So have you got any children?’ Granny was saying as Jess walked out.

She grabbed the phone. Could it possibly be Fred, replying to her text? Unlikely – he wouldn’t use the landline. It was Flora.

‘Hi, babe! So how did it go? Have you made it up with Fred?’

‘Flo! No, I haven’t, but I did see his mum, who now hates and despises me – I’ll call you back and tell you about it later, OK?’ Jess could hear her mum’s key in the door and she just had to warn her. ‘Gotta go – we’ve got a random Japanese man on the loose here.’

She rang off and flew to the front door. Her mum was coming in carrying about seven loaded carrier bags of groceries.

‘Mum!’ whispered Jess. ‘A Japanese guy is here! He’s in the sitting room! He’s been here since 5.30! Where on earth have you been?’

‘But I asked him to come at half past seven!’ whispered Mum, looking appalled.

‘No you didn’t, you said 17.30 – he showed me your letter.’

‘Oh no! That wretched twenty-four hour clock! I should have put 19.30 but it always sounds like 9.30!’

One of Mum’s carrier bags, which had been slowly giving way, suddenly ripped, and a plastic bag of rice fell to the floor and split.

‘I’ll sort this out!’ said Jess. ‘You just go in there and deal with him!’

Mum didn’t often take orders from Jess, but this time she just put down the rest of the bags and rushed into the sitting room. Jess fetched the dustpan and brush and began to clear up the mess.

‘Mr Nishizawa!’ Jess heard her mum say. ‘I’m so sorry! I’ve been completely stupid! I got mixed up between 7.30 and 17.30! I do apologise! I’m completely useless at anything to do with numbers! Do forgive me!’

‘Goodnight!’ said Mr Nishizawa.

‘He means “How do you do”,’ said Granny helpfully. ‘And he doesn’t understand a word of English, dear, so you’d better start at the beginning.’

‘Mr Nishizawa!’ said Mum. ‘Would you like to come upstairs to my study?’

Mum led Mr Nishizawa out of Granny’s room. He made a kind of graceful bow towards Jess, who was squatting unattractively in a sea of scattered rice. He also managed to convey, with a sympathetic shrug, his sympathy for the split carrier bag situation. Then he followed Mum upstairs. His shoes were flawless and shiny and a rather wonderful waft of lemony aftershave lingered behind him.

‘I suppose we’d better take them up a cup of tea,’ said Granny, coming out of her room. ‘Madeleine will be gasping for one.’

Jess and Granny unpacked the shopping. There was a packet of rather stylish little biscuits which they’d never had before. Mum had evidently bought these to impress Mr Nishizawa. Jess arranged four on a plate while Granny made the tea. Then Jess carried the tray upstairs and knocked on Mum’s study door.

‘Come in!’ called Mum in a rather tight, bright, shiny public voice. As Jess entered she could see that Mum was getting a headache.

‘Oh, thank you, darling!’ cried Mum. ‘How kind! Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Nishizawa?’

‘Oh, thank you, darling,’ said Mr Nishizawa, rather startlingly.

‘Shall I bring you the paracetamol?’ asked Jess.

‘Please,’ said Mum, looking desperate beneath a thin veneer of relaxation. ‘They’re in the bathroom cabinet. Do you take milk and sugar, Mr Nishizawa?’

‘No, please,’ he replied.

No wonder Mum was getting a headache. Jess fetched the tablets and a glass of water, and left Mum tucking into the first of the smart biscuits, which exploded all over her skirt. It seemed family life in Jess’s house was doomed to remain farcical.

Jess went downstairs to find that Granny had laid a little snack for them in the sitting room: tea, orange juice for Jess, and some egg mayonnaise sandwiches.

‘I made this egg mayonnaise earlier, dear,’ said Granny. ‘I knew you’d need something special after your first day at school.’

‘Oh, Granny, you are a star!’ said Jess, kissing her. ‘Let’s watch
Pulp Fiction
.’